Resto Druid PVE Guide - 5.0.4

Resto Druid Guide
Updated for 5.0.4

__________________________________________________

As Myrrar did for the Cataclysm guide, I too shall follow Dendrek’s general formatting. Some of this is directly copied and pasted from Myrrar’s guide; other portions are written from scratch or reorganized. This guide, in the broadest sense, should provide a thorough overview of healing preparation and execution for Mists of Pandaria. In many ways, a lot of the information here will not be different from Cataclysm; Resto Druids didn’t receive major overhauls like other classes.

Feedback is Welcome:
Arguing and trolling are not. If someone asks a question or makes a comment do not flame them, this guide is here to help people learn and understand. If you see something you would like me to add please comment. If you know something is wrong or outdated please tell me with something to support it with screenshots or links to theorycrafting. This will be updated a ton so feedback and mature debate are encouraged.

I don’t expect this guide to achieve perfection, but I will strive to tweak it as necessary. I do expect for there to be some mistakes, miscalculations, and so on because there’s a lot to cover. It’s up to you guys to lend a hand. With your contributions and feedback, let us work towards creating a useful compilation that beginning and advanced druids alike may access for guidance. Some of this will be subject to change as Blizzard finalizes Beta. I’m doing my very best to get this guide up fast for discussion; some portions might not be as clear or well described as possible. If readers quote areas that need to be more clear or need more detail, I will prioritize editing those sections. It is very important to be wary hardcore theorycrafting is not yet available so some information will likely change over time as that research comes to light, specifically for how well secondary stats match up with Intellect. If readers can provide hard numbers to make this information more accurate, please do so. I’m still checking EJ regularly hoping for new information

Searching the guide: To make it easier to search this guide, each section is proceeded by a #. If you need to get to a certain section quickly, hit [Crtl]+[f] to open your browser's "find" option, then type the section number you're looking for, preceded by the # sign. For example "#2.1" (without quotes) will take you to Reforging.

Preparing your character is extremely important. If you are properly prepared, you can get the most out of your resto druid. You should do your best to understand how to prepare your druid for combat and why certain decisions can be important.

#1. Stats
It is very important to be wary hardcore theorycrafting is not yet available so some information will likely change over time as that research comes to light, specifically for how well secondary stats match up with Intellect. If readers can provide hard numbers to make this information more accurate, please do so. I’m still checking EJ regularly hoping for new information

Technically, theorycrafting will likely show that excess Spirit should be reforged into Crit, but I personally prefer the cushion provided by the extra Spirit over the lack of reliable HPS that Crit provides. Excess Haste is essentially useless.

#1A. Stats: Intellect
Intellect is no longer the completely over-powered stat it once was. Intellect no longer provides us with extra mana or the additional mana regeneration from having more mana. Now, Intellect only increases your spell power and critical strike chance. The size of your mana pool is stagnant. If you have all the Spirit and Haste you need, Intellect will still be your go to stat, but it no longer has such a massive margin over your secondary stats. If you have a choice between 2 Intellect and 5 Mastery rating, you’ll probably want to choose the Mastery rating.

#1B. Stats: Spirit
Spirit is now your only stat that affects mana. Spirit is your most important secondary stat. That does not necessarily mean you need to stack Spirit; this cannot be stressed enough. It simply means: if you run out of mana, you cannot heal. Find the amount of Spirit that is right for you, and don’t go over that amount. Use all the Spirit you need to keep yourself from going OOM. There is no set number; all players will use mana with different efficiency.

You might find you need more Spirit healing some places than other, for example in Terrace of Endless Spring you may need more spirit than you need to heal Mogu’shan Vaults. In this case, if you can afford the time and money to reforge your gear regularly, I highly recommend investing in ReforgeSaver or ReforgeLite to make the process quick and painless.

Preferring extra Spirit and finishing every fight over 50% mana does not make sense. I consider that wasting a lot of stats. If your healing style calls for you to use more spirit, that's fine, but players should really gear such that they finish fights with ~25% mana. This gives you leeway if stuff gets messy, but should give you some sort of tangible goal when trying to decide how much Spirit/mana regen you need.

#1C. Stats: Haste Haste is a very important stat. Haste reduces the cast time of your spells with cast times, increases the speed at which your HoT’s tick, and reduces the global cooldown (GCD) that follows instant casts (except Rejuvenation because Swift Rejuvenation lowers the GCD triggered by Rejuv to the minimum GCD time of 1 second). As your haste increases enough, your HoT’s will actually have enough time to fit additional ticks in their duration.

Assuming you have the 5% spell haste buff, your goal is to reach either 3043 Haste rating or 6652 Haste rating and minimize the amount of excess Haste above those numbers. 3043 Haste pushes you into an extra tick of Rejuvenation and Tranquility. With 6652 Haste your Wild Growth and Efflorescence tick 2 extra times (the 1st extra tick coming at 860 Haste).

If you don't have the 5% Spell Haste buff: you want to aim for 5,320 Haste; the 3028 WG/Efflo breakpoint shown below is important, but there's no reason you can't reach 5,320 Haste without sacrificing too much Spirit or Intellect.

Any extra haste rating above these breakpoints can safely be considered wasted. It's likely you will have 25-50 Haste rating above the breakpoints, but that's a reasonable amount.

Due to bankers’ rounding, these numbers are probably slightly inaccurate, by up to 10 rating. Until somebody can provide more accurate numbers, just be wary of that.

Reaching the 9th tick of Wild Growth and Efflorescence is very doable. However, assuming your raid group has 5% Spell Haste, it will require 6652 Haste rating to reach that important breakpoint. Otherwise, reaching 5320 Haste rating is your goal.

In Cata, it was worth sacrificing up to 300 Intellect (from a pure HPS perspective) to reach the 9th tick of WG/Efflo. Doing my best off-hand guesstimations by comparing T11 raid gear with T14 raid gear, it will be worth sacrificing around 950-1050 Intellect to reach the WG/Efflo Haste breakpoint.

Crit rating is very close to Mastery in terms of overall HPS. With crit, sometimes you heal a lot in emergencies, sometimes you heal less. With mastery you heal always more, even in emergencies but the overall potential healing is lower.

#2. Optimizing Your Gear
Please continue to look for official theorycrafting before getting your mind set on this information. I will update the guide as soon as additional research provides new insight.

As of right now, if you are really struggling with mana, don’t be afraid to use Spirit gems, enchants, and reforging. It’s nice to have the 6652 Haste breakpoint, but if you go OOM regularly, it doesn’t matter how much haste you have.

#2B. Optimizing Your Gear: Gems
It’s important to take note that secondary stats are now weighted much heavier on gems, there are twice as many secondary stats on gems are there are primary stats.

Because Intellect no longer restores mana and secondary stat values have increased on gems relative to Intellect, it is safe to assume you want to get almost all socket bonuses. If the only way to reach one of the major Haste breakpoints means skipping a couple socket bonuses, skip the socket bonuses. If a socket bonus provides Haste and you already have the breakpoint you want, getting that Haste socket bonus probably means you can reduce Haste somewhere else on your gear allowing you to gain more Spirit, Mastery or Int. Skip socket bonuses that provide crit.

You will need to make your own decisions based on reaching appropriate levels of Haste versus Spirit versus gemming for Intellect/socket bonuses wherever else possible. If you simply need more Spirit, don’t be afraid to drop in some blue gems. The information you need to help make these decisions should be just above in the stat descriptions. Unfortunately, it simply is not so straightforward anymore that we can just say use only +Intellect gems. A lot is dependent on your other gear.

Meta sockets: Burning Primal Diamond or Revitalizing Primal Diamond - Choosing between these will really depend upon your personal gearing needs. If you need more mana regen, take the Revitalizing meta. If you don't need more mana regen, take the Burning meta.

#2C. Optimizing Your Gear: Reforging Priorities

Follow these guidelines when trying to decide how to reforge
Spirit - Make sure you have enough Spirit to avoid going OOM.
Haste - With the 5% Haste raise buff, you have the 3043 or 6652 Haste breakpoints. Without the 5% Haste raise buff, you have the 5320 Haste breakpoint. Minimal excess haste over these numbers.
Mastery - All Crit and excess Spirit or Haste should be reforged into Mastery. Reforge out of Mastery if you need more Haste or Spirit.
Crit - Always reforge out of Crit to one of the other three secondary stats based on the guidelines above.

#3. Consumables
It’s important to notice that, unlike gems, secondary stats are equivalent to primary stats in these categories. If you need additional secondary stats in lieu of Intellect, first try to make the necessary changes with gems before relying on these temporary consumables.

#3B. Potions
In almost all cases, Potion of Focus should be the potion of choice. Try to coordinate with your fellow healers for a chance to drink up. The other potions should only be used in special cases.

#5. Talents You can now change individual talents with the use of a single Dust of Disappearance (at level 85) or a Tome of the Clear Mind (level 86 or above), purchasable from Inscription vendors. This means, you could use a unique spec for every boss in a given raid without ever having to visit a trainer. In fact, you should plan on changing talents regularly through the raid night.

There is no longer a cookie cutter talent tree. For a given fight, there might be some “best options” for you to choose, but every single boss might have different “best options.” With a strong understanding of boss mechanics and class mechanics, you should have some freedom to be creative. I highly encourage creative uses of your talents to counter specific fight mechanics.

For each talent, I will post one mechanic (mostly from fights in Dragon Soul) for which you might find that talent useful.

Once I have experience with the MoP raids, I will post new examples for the current content. Right now, most players (including myself) will be better able to relate to the mechanics in DS. I may list the same boss more than once per talent tier if there are different mechanics the talents suit well. This will also serve as an example that we really do have choice in our talent trees now.

Displacer Beast With a cancelaura macro for this spell, it can effectively be considered Blink with a 30 second CD.
Boss: General Zon’ozz
Use: If you receive the debuff, quickly get away from the group so you can be dispelled.

Wild Charge - Blackhorn
Boss: Hagara the Stormbinder
Use: During frost phase, charge to an ally if you fall behind and get close to the frost spikes.

#5B. Talents: Tier 2 (Level 30) All of the talents in this tree allow more healing utility. These can be make or break for some fights.

Nature’s Swiftness
Boss: Madness of Deathwing
Use: Macro this with Healing Touch. Use it to top off a tank before or after an Impale.

Renewal
Boss: Madness of Deathwing
Use: Use this following the explosion of an Elementium Bolt.

Soul of the Forest This ability is very strong when coupled with Wild Growth. You get an extra 2 ticks, which is a huge HPS increase.
Boss: Ultraxion
Use: Healing the entire fight.

Incarnation ***
Boss: General Zon'ozz
Use: Healing black phase. There's a lot of damage, and you're all spread out so Soul of the Forest is not helpful for healing this part of the fight. The straight healing increase is very helpful.

Force of Nature
Boss: N/A
Use: As of right now, this talent is very weak for Resto. It’s not worth taking for any reason. Look for updates in the future if it gets buffed.

#5E. Talents: Tier 5 (Level 75) Moar CC! Yay!

Disorienting Roar
Boss: Maloriak
Use: If you pull aggro on the little adds, this is a good way to keep them from smacking you and giving the tank some time to pick them up.

Ursol’s Vortex
Boss: Maloriak
Use: This can allow you to peel the adds off your tank while he's trying to kite them.

Heart of the Wild The actual use of this talent will not be very handy in PVE, usually—at least not to the extent that you would actually want to choose this talent for those purposes. Maybe you could save a wipe by going into Bear Form, but those opportunities will be so rare that you normally wouldn't want to choose this talent solely for the purposes of being an emergency tank. Chimaeron might be the only boss in Cata that you would choose this talent, and that is solely because you don't have the opportunity to heal during his burn phase. The extremely long CD gives more reason you would not want to rely on this talent.
Boss: Ultraxion
Use: Having the 6% passive Intellect for the duration of the fight will help you not fall behind on healing, and it will help your mana (due to your spells being more effect; remember: this doesn't increase your mana pool but the increased HPS can save you mana).

Dream of Cenarius If you consume this buff by use of Swiftmend, it does not affect Efflorescence. That makes Wild Growth the best spell for AoE healing with this buff. Rejuv and Lifebloom are actually good uses for this debuff if you know your tank will be taking a lot of damage over a 12-15 second period. Lifebloom is technically the stronger spell in this case, but due to refreshing habits, it will be easy to refresh LB with a weaker version before you can get the full effect of the buff, so be wary of that. Healing Touch and Regrowth are also good options if your tank takes a significant amount of spike damage.
Boss: Madness of Deathwing
Use: The predictable times of damage from the Corruptions in Phase 1 allows you plenty of time to cast Wrath and have HT/RG ready to heal spike damage that would inevitably follow the pause in damage going out.

Nature’s Vigil ***The damage component of this is actual pretty insignificant. You generally shouldn't consider that portion of this cool down when trying to choose your tier 6 talents.
Boss: General Zon'ozz
Use: Healing black phase.

*** On Beta, many players were simply using these two spells together. While that's fine, for some fights you might want to spread these out. If you include Tranquility, you would then have one major CD available per minute, which would be very useful for fights with regular bursty AoE damage that don't necessarily allow you to stack in a tight group (examples: Sinestra, Ragnaros, Zon'ozz)

#6. Glyphs

#6A. Major Glyphs

Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, Rebirth, Regrowth and Wild Growth will probably be the most commonly used glyphs. Which combination you use will depend on your spec and the boss you are fighting.

Healing Touch : *Until you get the Tier 14 4-piece bonus, you should never use this glyph if you spec into Soul of the Forest for a heavy AoE fight.* Wild Growth benefits from SotF far more than any other spell, which means that WG needs to be cast right after Swiftmend when you have the SotF talent. If you lower the SM CD too much, WG won't be able to benefit from SotF. Once you do have the tier bonus, this glyph can actually help bring the SM CD closer to the WG CD when coupled with the WG Glyph.

Rebirth : Bringing your ally back to life at 100% health can be valuable. It provides some nice leeway for players who accidentally resurrect at inopportune times.

Regrowth : Compared to our other HoT's the HoT portion of Regrowth is relatively weak. Sacrificing that for a guaranteed 100% crit chance on Regrowth is very worth it. I recommend using this glyph in most cases. This also means a guaranteed proc of Living Seed. It's important to note you will no longer be able to Swiftmend off your Regrowth targets once the HoT is removed, which can be a big drawback in some cases.

Rejuvenation : This glyph depends on your healing style. If you are a very frequent user of Nourish as one of your main heals—instead of using it primarily as a filler, you should get good use of this glyph. I personally do not use Nourish very often at times that I also have 3+ Rejuvs on targets so this glyph is not very useful for me. This all depends on your style.

Wild Growth : If you aren't spec'ed into Soul of the Forest, you should always use this glyph for 25-man raiding; for some 10-man fights you may be too spread out to gain the benefit of an extra target; for 5-mans, you generally won't gain much (if any) benefit from having an extra target so you might want to pass on this glyph. *Until you get the Tier 14 4-piece bonus, you should never use this glyph if you spec into Soul of the Forest for a heavy AoE fight. I highly recommend this glyph once you have the T14 4-piece.* Once you do have the tier bonus, this glyph can actually help bring the SM CD closer to the WG CD when coupled with the Healing Touch glyph.

Healing Touch : Same cast time as Nourish but heals for a lot more, and in turn is a lot more mana. If your tank NEEDS it, cast it. It's a lot of mana but the tank needs to live. Outside of that, sometimes it's better to use HT on CC procs over RG, but you need to decide how much direct healing the target needs and if RGs initial heal isn't enough to last until the hot is completed.

Lifebloom : Keep three stacks applied to the most important target to heal (usually the tank, of course). Keep it rolling, end of story. You should never not have LB ticking. If you have time and the healing's needed, refresh with Nourish. CC procs (Clearcasting from Omen of Clarity) are a good time to use Regrowth or Healing Touch to refresh LB. If not, just refresh it.

Nourish : Your filler heal. Whenever you don't have to cast something else you should be casting this if it wont be going to overheal. Don't be disappointed by the low healing, even without the hot buffer it's still a filler heal. With a hot buffer it's better, so aim at keeping a buffer up. If you refresh LB with nourish at all times, Harmony will have a 100% uptime. Though with CC procs and SM this isn't really needed.

Regrowth : This is a fast, expensive heal; our flash heal. Regrowth now has 60% crit chance built in. It costs a lot of mana but heals a good amount and leaves a hot. Alternatively, the glyph for this spell removes the HoT but makes the spell crit heal 100% of the time. Mainly used with CC procs. But, if SM is on CD and someone needs emergency spike, this is your go-to spell. Be careful: no spell can drain your mana faster than Regrowth.

Rejuvenation : This will still be 1st or second on your meter, especially in raids. Know how much yours heals for. Rejuv is still a very powerful spell, don't underestimate it. Don't spam it 'til you go OOM, but if it won't go to over healing this will be your most powerful spell for mana cost.

Swiftmend : Use every CD if it's not going to overheal or you know you want to place Efflo somewhere specifically soon. SM is probably our best spell. It's instant, heals for a good amount, and throws Efflo on the ground. You can also SM other druids hots so if you have Vuhdo, make sure you put SM’able targets on. More about the Efflorescence effect caused by SM: Is amazing now. Puts a healing zone that restores health equal to 4/8/12% of the amount healed by Swiftmend to the three most injured targets within 8 yards, every 1 second for 7 seconds. This periodic effect now also benefits from spell haste, but the individual ticks cannot be critical effects. It's a smart heal that heals a ton more then old SM and heals the lowest targets 1st. If there are only 2, all that healing goes to 2. If more, it heals up to 3 at a time but if 25 are in it every tick goes to the lowest person. If just the tank, it's still a great spell.

Tranquility : It heals for a ton, know when the best time to fit it in is and use it as many times as you can on a fight. This is no longer quite as overpowered as it once was. As Resto, this spell has a 3 minute CD. Before a fight starts, you should know appropriate times to cast this, but sometimes this is a good emergency spell.

Wild Growth : This will still be 1st or second on your meter, especially in raids. It's a smart heal (which means it heals the most injured targets), it has a 30 yard range, it costs 1% more mana than RJ. WG can be used on a hostile unit and smart heal the closest thing around it making it very unique. Use your WG when needed, but since it's expensive don't spam it if possible. If you have Vuhdo make sure you turn clustering on.

Wild Mushroom: Bloom : Currently, this spell is relatively weak; however, mana-wise, it's very cheap. For fights that have alot of stacking, I recommend placing your Shrooms during healing downtime so you can Bloom them when your raid is taking AoE damage. Never place these while significant damage is going out; only place them before the damage begins.

#8. Utility Spells

Barkskin : This now has a 45 second cooldown. Use it anytime you can predict you will take damage.

Innervate : Use this on yourself whenever you dip to 75% mana. The sooner you get this on CD, the sooner you can use it a second time (or third).

Ironbark : Use this when you know a certain player is about to take a large amount of damage.

Might of Ursoc : This spell is a good defensive CD, either for when you know you're about to take a lot of damage or after you just took a lot of damage and your health is very low.

Rebirth : In a single boss pull, your raid can battle res one player in 10-mans and three players in 25-mans. Don't waste it. Communicate with your other Druids/Death Knights/Warlocks who you are BR’ing.

#10. Mastery: Harmony
Your direct healing is increased by an additional 10% and casting your direct healing spells grants you an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 20 sec. Although any direct heal and Wild Mushroom: Bloom can proc Harmony, the 20 second duration of the buff allows consistent use of Swiftmend (and Omen of Clarity procs) to maintain 100% uptime, making our mastery essentially passive.

How it works:

Harmony doesn't update a hot as it's ticking. If you cast Rejuv and get Harmony a few ticks in, it doesn't update it.

If you cast a hot and midway through you gain Harmony, it doesn't update it.

Lifebloom: Harmony effects all the stacks based on the last one cast. If harmony is only active on the last LB stack, it effects them all. If harmony is on the 1st 2 and not the 3rd, LB doesn't get the effect.

Harmony will effect the RG hot if that RG is a new or refreshed Harmony.

Harmony will effect a HoT you cast directly after a direct heal, it won't lag.

If harmony falls off during Tranq, the ticks after it won't have the buff.

#11. Symbiosis
Creates a symbiotic link which grants the Druid one ability belonging to the target's class, varying by the Druid's specialization. Also grants the target one Druid ability based on their class and combat role. Lasts 1 hour and persists through death. Cannot be cast on other Druids. Effect cancelled if Druid and target become too far apart.

Your Symbiosis target might very well change on a fight-to-fight basis.

When you cast Symbiosis on somebody, here are the spells you can receive:

Some common targets for Resto Druids will probably be Brewmaster Monks, Blood Death Knights, and Shadow Priests.

#12. Strategy: Healing Dungeons
Don't heal what you don't have to. If your rogue gets hit by something random once, WG or Rejuv will be enough, no need to spam HT/RG on him. Don't waste mana.

You aren't going to have everyone at 100% all the time. Especially in heroics, 99% of the boss fights most damage is avoidable. If you are playing with people who struggle with mechanics, yes, you will have mana problems, and people will die. If someone stands in something, explain to them you don't have the mana to heal through ignoring mechanics.

Nourish is a filler. Like LB, you will regen that mana back as fast as you use it. So, whenever you aren't healing spike or someone about to die you should be nourishing people closer to 100%. Go for the people with hots 1st for the nourish buff.

Use WG. It's low mana and it will give you a buffer to nourish if needed and will get them further away from 0. Use SM every CD. It's also a very cheap spell. Use SM on CD. It's now good even if it's just on the tank.

Don't be afraid of tree. If there is an aura mechanic pop ToL, LB everyone once and start going back through the line to stack to 3 and refresh. When CC pops, throw an instant RG on whoever needs it.

Along with that, do not be afraid of Tranq. It's a very good spell, use it.

Healing in heroics is hard with bads, but not impossible. Use your lower mana spells, use your hots, and fill with nourish as often as possible. Once you get some gear, you will find even heroics extremely easy to heal.

Don't worry about Wild Mushrooms in a dungeon environment. If you're able to work it in on a dungeon boss and get some extra healing, good for you, but as of right now this spell is relatively week, and dungeons tend to have a lot of movement.

#13. Strategy: Healing Raids

Pre-hot: If you know a big ability is coming be ready with Rejuvs already out and WG and Efllo preparing to be used.

Use Wg on CD: unless it's only going to overheal. If 2 players need the heal, it's worth casting WG is smartcast, as a class dependent on HoT's we want to heal proactively, not react to it.

Rely on your hots: We can direct heal now, but our HoTs are still where we shine. Direct heal if you need to, but still focus on your HoTs.

Keep LB on a tank at ALL times. No reason not too, It's cheap, it procs CC, it heals for a ton.

Use Incarnation: ToL when needed (but always use it 1-2 times per fight).

Use Tranq: It's amazing, know strats and the best time to use it (as in save it for half and a badly timed knockdown in P2)

Know when to use Efflo. Yes, it's great on one target now, but it's better on multiple.

Use Innervate any time you dip to 75% mana.

If you know your raid will be stacking in a set location, try to pre-plant Shrooms in that spot while you have some down time from healing.

Tank healing: Depending on your gear this will change a lot. Some people use nourish all the time, some people can spam HT and not have any problems. You need to test for yourself and see how it goes. If you can keep your tank up by rolling LB and Rejuv, using WG and SM on CD and use nourish, do it. Unless your tank is going to die you can use the extra mana to throw out Rejuvs on raid damage. If the tank is getting hit so hard that you have to constantly HT them, do that, your job is for your tank to live. Use SM on CD and proc Efflo on them (if SM isn't going to overheal, of course).

Spamming HT which has the same cast time as nourish just because when you don't need to is waste of mana that can be used other places. In 10s, you shouldn't really need a tank healer and with the future changes to Rejuv/Nourish/WG, it will be a nice buff to all tank healers, but especially 10 mans.

#14. User Interface
You need to find a UI that works for you. Copying others is not necessarily a good idea.

A few recommendations
Addons are very helpful. Get the addons you need. Don't get any more. A cluttered screen will only serve to distract you.
Viewporting (as seen in Tsuki's UI) is not bad, but do not put your heal frames in there. That's an excellent way to tunnel vision.
Some parts of your UI you don't need while raiding. Addons like Bartender and Kong allow you to have portions of your UI fade out when you enter combat.

Here are some example UIs to get you started on ideas.

Fumsy Out Of Combat

Click image for full size

Fumsy In Combat

Click image for full size

Courtesy of Shìft/Promey

Click image for full size

Courtesy of Shìft/Promey

Courtesy of Tsuki

Click image for full size

#14A. Macros

Now that we will be more frequently changing single talents, it makes sense to have the talents from a given tier bound to the same key. I recommend making a macro that incorporates all the abilities from a single tier so you don't need to constantly mess with your bars/bindings.

#14B. Addons Use a healing addon. It's worth learning Vuhdo. It will increase your reaction time, and its convenience will allow you more focus for other mechanics.

They are all pretty much the same. I'm not going to go into this largely, but from a lot of people testing all 3 on many different factors many agree(for right now at least) Vuhdo is superior, though not by a lot, trailed by Grid then Healbot. This is based on functionality, latency, resource usage, and customization.

If you're new to Vuhdo, here is a YouTube playlist with three very useful tutorial videos. Even if you're not new to this addon, you still may learn something.

Use something that shows your CDs and when they will be up. I use ForteXorcist (CoolLine is an alternative) though there are many out there that work. Power Auras is amazing if you want all your CDs (Innervate, Barkskin, etc.), procs (Harmony, Soul of the Forest, etc.), things like that right around your character. It can get bulky looking, but is very useful. WeakAuras is an increasingly popular alternative.

Use DBM or Bigwigs. You have no excuse not to. When content is new/buggy, the timers can be off so sometimes I actually use both for extra awareness. Usually, duplication of addons is bad, but being misinformed about a fight is worse.

I recommend using Quartz, if for no other reason, for an improved cast bar. You can increase the size and show latency. The latency approximation is not 100% accurate because your latency will change once you start casting, but it gives you a decent idea.

Besides that, anything outside the blizzard UI is up to you. I like a more sleek look so I don't use any standard UI, but nothing else is needed.

I have compiled a pre-raid set of gear that makes the 6652 Haste breakpoint very accessible once gemmed, enchanted, and reforged. It should provide plenty of Spirit. If you are having mana problems using this gear, you probably need to reassess your healing efficiency. Keep in mind, you’re a new level 90 now so you’re not supposed to be able to spam endlessly like you could in DS gear at level 85. See what you can do to conserve mana before deciding matter-of-factly that you simply need more Spirit.

Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing provide the most long-term gearing flexibility due to the nature of their gem/socket bonuses making it easy to pick up extra Haste or Spirit instead of Intellect. For the hardcore willing to actually change professions for a single piece of gear good for one tier, this Engineering helm is pre-raid BiS:Camouflage Retinal Armor

Nice guide Fumsy, just got one question on what you've put for Glyph of Wild Growth:

Wild Growth : If you aren't spec'ed into Soul of the Forest, you should always use this glyph for 25-man raiding and 5-mans

Why take this glyph for 5-mans? The extra target would only be a pet and they don't tend to take much damage if any. If you have a ranged heavy group you can also run into the problem you mention with taking this glyph for 10-mans, you won't hit all 5-6 targets with the HoT.

I always use it for 5-mans because I hate pets stealing one of the procs. From an HPS perspective, you're absolutely right. Using the glyph for 5-mans is purely personal preference, which I realize doesn't necessarily mean that's how everybody should do it.

An amazing guide and hopefully this will get updated as soon as MoP hits with some raid tacts etc...for resto druids
I highly recommend vuhdo , it is an amazing addon and you should customize it.I will post a ss of my UI in combat soon(when all my addons are updated)

Also I suggest you turn off floating combat text(that is if you know your class well) in order to get a better view of the interface
Also you should use Doom CooldownPulse for easier tracking of your cooldowns

also on the glyphs.I prefer to use glyph of rejuvenation instead of rebirth since I like the way it worked till now and a regrowth-timed but cheaper spell is always good.Is it worth dropping rebirth(our other resto druid is doing the same)???

looking over Logs now it looks like Wild Growth prioritize players over pets when used it seems to be healing less on pets now as it did watching it from my druids logs.
i dont know if you have looked into this much but might be something to consider instead of using the glyph and making it a 10 second cooldown.

I haven't re-tested it hopeful for changes. It has always been more likely to go onto players because pets generally take less damage, meaning in WoL (even in the past) players should have always had more ticks/healing done from WG than pets. I do recommend avoiding the glyph for 5-mans (even though I personally still choose to use the glyph because I hate pets and don't have much problems healing 5-mans so I can choose not to do the most efficient method if I like). For 10-mans, you really need to look at the glyph on a fight-by-fight basis. If the extra target will go to waste, you certainly don't want to use the glyph. If you will often benefit from the 6th target (on a fight like Ultraxion, for example), then it's worth the 10 second CD.

I also do strongly recommend avoiding the glyph while spec'ed into Soul of the Forest, as mentioned in the guide. It really messes up how well the heal CD's lineup.

Were you using the expression editor to see relative levels of health when you cast WG? Because it's a smart heal, it should always target the players/pets with the largest deficit in health.

Theorycrafting will probably show that Crit rating is very close to Mastery in terms of overall HPS. The problem is your crit chance will still be relatively low so it's a bad idea to rely on this stat. HPS-wise, Crit might even out with Mastery over the duration of a fight, but you might not get the critical heals when you need them most, which is something comparing straight HPS does not account for. For this reason, I prioritize mastery in all cases.

As of now, you should have 100% uptime on Harmony, meaning every spell you cast should benefit from your Mastery. Because Resto Druid mechanics have not changed very much, Mastery rating should still have the slight edge over Crit rating.

Generally, Crit HoT’s are too unreliable to gear for it to be worth specifically gearing for Crit rating. For the sake of consistent HPS and being aware of your capabilities, I highly recommend prioritizing Mastery rating over Crit rating.

Ok, here I have problem with this part.

1. Have you ever tested crit reforge yourself? Apparently not, because quoted part is not only misleading but false in the essential part of its reasoning. Resto druids have so many itterations of almost every spell, randomization is not a valid excuse in reforging out of crit. Go check your last log and see how many Rejuv or Wild Growth ticks you have during 6+ min encounters (the minimum length of any semi-serious raid encounter).
2. If you are giving advices about stat choices or anything even remotely related to math, give numbers. I can't see a single point in favor of going Mastery over Crit or the other way round. This paragraph is totally useless, gives no explanation whatsoever and doens't even have testing attached. Choosing Typhoon over Faerie Swarm doens't require math to support decision. Choosing Mastery over Crit does.

Meta sockets: Ember Primal Diamond - this is going to be our meta gem for a long time. Get used to it.

From my internal beta testing based on very low number of itterations and scewed data due to obvious reasons, both of these gems are better than Ember one. Prove me wrong on this one, because at the moment I plan to use Revitalizing meta over Ember.

Due to bankers’ rounding, these numbers below have a margin of error of ± 10. Until somebody can provide more accurate numbers, assume you need at least 10 Haste rating higher than the listed values for these breakpoints.

There isn't such a thing as "margin of error of +-10". You know exactly how much haste % is needed for Rejuvenation and Wild Growth to get an additional tick, which is know from the formulas that are being there in the internetz for ages now (after 4.0 haste change). Plus, you can check that manually on Beta by reforging/regemming with a shaman/moonkin/sp in the group. I have no clue why you are telling people to essentially waste stats.

1st part: What it says there is "With crit, you heal sometimes a lot in emergencies. With mastery you heal always more, even in emergencys but not as much. HPS-wise crit is very slightly better"

2nd: Very valid point. I'd like to hear the reasoning as well.

3rd: The calculations aren't done and there is a margin for error. The numbers aren't even needed yet and I'd assume they're corrected later. Our OP here might not even be the one doing these calculations, maybe he is just compiling the information in a nice package for everyone to see.

1. Have you ever tested crit reforge yourself? Apparently not, because quoted part is not only misleading but false in the essential part of its reasoning. Resto druids have so many itterations of almost every spell, randomization is not a valid excuse in reforging out of crit. Go check your last log and see how many Rejuv or Wild Growth ticks you have during 6+ min encounters (the minimum length of any semi-serious raid encounter).
2. If you are giving advices about stat choices or anything even remotely related to math, give numbers. I can't see a single point in favor of going Mastery over Crit or the other way round. This paragraph is totally useless, gives no explanation whatsoever and doens't even have testing attached. Choosing Typhoon over Faerie Swarm doens't require math to support decision. Choosing Mastery over Crit does.

Do note that I did acknowledge Mastery and Crit to be quite even in my stat priority list, which you chose to ignore.

The way Alzu put it, which I thank him for, is a better way to state this claim without coming off as flaming:

Originally Posted by Alzu

1st part: What it says there is "With crit, you heal sometimes a lot in emergencies. With mastery you heal always more, even in emergencys but not as much. HPS-wise crit is very slightly better"

I shall adjust the guide as such, and leave it for the reader to decide which he/she values most when it comes to reforging – rather than pushing my personal choices for the guaranteed stronger heals.

From my internal beta testing based on very low number of itterations and scewed data due to obvious reasons, both of these gems are better than Ember one. Prove me wrong on this one, because at the moment I plan to use Revitalizing meta over Ember.

This was an error on my part. Looking through WoWHead I only saw one healer meta, which is why I posted that recommendation so matter-of-factly and without explanation. Thank you for the correction. Over the duration of the fight, Ember Primal Diamond is very clearly not terribly useful because the only method by which it will increase our mana regeneration is Innervate, which is a whopping extra 1200 mana. Of course, you would have an extra 6000 mana so you could last a little longer before going OOM, but I recognize Ember lacks the strength it once did because we've since lost Revitalize, Replenishment, and Furor.

There isn't such a thing as "margin of error of +-10". You know exactly how much haste % is needed for Rejuvenation and Wild Growth to get an additional tick, which is know from the formulas that are being there in the internetz for ages now (after 4.0 haste change). Plus, you can check that manually on Beta by reforging/regemming with a shaman/moonkin/sp in the group. I have no clue why you are telling people to essentially waste stats.

Yes, I understand there is no such thing as a margin of error of ±10, but to the layman it means more to give a range of haste rating than it does to say there is a margin of error of .0015%. That won't be helpful for most players.

Yes, with Excel there actually will be separate numbers produced. I am surely less adept at advanced spreadsheeting than others. I mentioned bankers' rounding as my explanation, which you dismissed, but it can be seen at work here. In that post, you can see the author, Blink, quoted WTSHeals.com (which has since been fixed on their website) as finding the 9th WG/Efflo tick to 6650, but we know through further testing that number is actually 6652. This error is due to bankers' rounding which I don't know how to account for in excel.

Since you're confident the numbers are very easy to calculate, it would be wonderful if you could provide a spreadsheet or screenshot of one that will allow to me to fix the numbers as accurately as possible. I actually specifically qualified that statement that it would be helpful for somebody better with statistics to provide the most accurate information possible, but instead you found it more worth your time to insult me.

You gave us 2 options! Is Revitalizing better if you prefer more spirit and Burning if you want to go only throughput, or is there a definitive answer that either is better?

Btw, very well written guide. I appreciate your work!

Thanks!

Because these two gems have the same bonus effect, they're incredibly easy to compare. Choosing between these will really depend upon your personal gearing needs. If you need more mana regen, take the Revitalizing meta. If you don't need more mana regen, take the Burning meta. To me, preferring extra Spirit and finishing every fight over 50% mana does not make sense. I consider that wasting a lot of stats. If your healing style calls for you to use more spirit, that's fine, but players should really gear such that they finish fights with ~25% mana. This gives you leeway if stuff gets messy, but should give you some sort of tangible goal when trying to decide how much Spirit/mana regen you need.

I really don't consider it fair to match up a regen stat with a throughput stat and simply choose which is better from an all-encompassing mathematical standpoint because every player heals differently. We aren't computers so we can't perfectly balance our healing with the stats we have available. Certainly, SimCraft should be able to "prove" which one is better, but when it really comes down to it, you either need more mana or you don't. I won't try to tell players there is one gem and that gem is always the right gem when it comes to throughput versus regen because if you're going OOM, it doesn't matter which gem excel thinks provides the slight edge. If you're going OOM, you need the spirit gem.

For the players who will adjust their healing style based on Excel and are fully capable of rarely/never going OOM, I would ask that somebody provide calculations so I can amend my guide with that information.

Before the patch crit was actually beter than mastery, but we started out with much higher base crit so we always stacked mastery when considering stat priorities. A lot of people just always saw mastery>crit and didn't really understand why.

As for post-patch, I haven't seen any numbers so I can't comment theorycrafting wise, it's something that should be looked into. I'd stil be surprised if gearing up wise crit overthrew mastery though. While I don't agree crit being random is really a huge problem since hot crits happen so often it leads to stable hps increase with random bouts of high spikes, due to the way stats work alone(crit auto being so much higher) mastery is better. Well, WAS better if things have changed drastically.

As for the gem, I agree. Unless there are 100% solid numbers behind it(something like using Power torrent) both should be listed and reasons on why each would fit different playstyles.

Haste:
Yes, they took out the margin of error in a past patch. There is now no reason what so ever to take more than the exact haste point. Breakpoints may change, I have no idea. But if theorycrafters say it still takes 2005 haste you only need 2005 haste, nothing more. The chart linked in the original guide should still stand true and is by a theorycrafter who has proven themselves time and again to have really solid knowledge: http://theincbear.com/math/resto-haste-breakpoints

In the end, you brought up really good points, but, try and understand this is his 1st guide on our site and his 1st version. No need to insult, just explain things you know need to be changed and why.

I wasn't insulting, flaming or anything like that. English is my third language I almost never use outside of the game, so most of the time I translate my thoughts word-to-word. They don't sound sarcastic, insulting or anything like that when I read my last post again. Some intonations are still not very easy for me to understand, especially in the written form. You, native speakers, always forget that -.-

just explain things you know need to be changed and why.

I didn't claim 'I KNOW', in fact I even stated that my testing on different gems is pretty shit with little and scewed amount of data, and ironically that was the point you didn't nitpick.

Since you're confident the numbers are very easy to calculate, it would be wonderful if you could provide a spreadsheet or screenshot of one that will allow to me to fix the numbers as accurately as possible. I actually specifically qualified that statement that it would be helpful for somebody better with statistics to provide the most accurate information possible, but instead you found it more worth your time to insult me.

The numbers in that sheet are correct (I didn't bother to check useless breakpoints like lifebloom and regrowth though). I was pointing out that +-10 should be removed, because it's false information that ultimately makes people waste stats. I don't understand why you are insulted by criticism, when it's well justified and you know you are wrong (in this particular case).

Back to the crit being 'random'. It's not random, when you play resto druid. When you have like 1k RJ and Efflo ticks, 3k WG and LB ticks, your numbers will not be screwed by 'randomness'. Rejuv suddenly not critting on random raid member is not the same as Divine Light suddenly not critting on a tank, you play completely different role which requires high steady hps. Whatever mean you have to do it, the better. I have yet to see someone dying because my Wild Growth tick didn't crit.

That being said, I don't claim crit to be better until I see the numbers. I just find this line: "Generally, Crit HoT’s are too unreliable to gear for it to be worth specifically gearing for Crit rating. For the sake of consistent HPS and being aware of your capabilities, I highly recommend prioritizing Mastery rating over Crit rating", to be misleading and giving people wrong impression of what Crit is for resto druids.

P.S. I still think that giving stat priority without math behind it is a bad thing for a guide. Do that in the end as your thought if you are not sure. You can see that a random guy like me can jump in and say 'NO, CRIT IS BETTER', and you have nothing to prove me wrong, because both of us have only words to use, which are pretty useless for this exact argument.

Hi,
thanks for the nice guide, I have a question on the Tier 1 Talents. I have read at other places that "Displacer Beast" is kind of bad. Well to me it actually looks as the most appealing one. If bound to macro to cancel the prowl aura It is basically a Blink and a 25% runspeed (from cat). On most situations I do not need to run permanently (so no Feline swiftness needed) or displace every 15 seconds. Typically I just need to move out of some stuff or get fast to some area. The nice thing is that I do not need a target at my desired position (which I dislike about Wild Charge). Well, I will be in cat form, but using vudho the first spell I use will automatically cancel cat form and 30 second cool down as compared to 15s does not seem too bad considering I do not need a target. Further if I would need in a boss fight so often I would probably directly go for Feline Swiftness anyway. Just my thoughts about it, let me know what you think.

There's also a mistake in Symbiosis section. Holy and Disc priests get Cyclone, not Roots.

You could also add an option to get 4 piece PvP set. As silly as it may sound, it reduces the cd of your Swiftmend by 2 sec and most importantly reduces Ironbark cd by 90 sec, making it 30 sec cd and 12 sec duration. Quite insane on some encounters.

If bound to macro to cancel the prowl aura It is basically a Blink and a 25% runspeed (from cat). On most situations I do not need to run permanently (so no Feline swiftness needed) or displace every 15 seconds.

Which spec are you considering this for? Because cat form does not have a baseline speed increase for resto or boomkin, only for feral (and possibly guardian - not sure) At least not in my experience thus far.

Which spec are you considering this for? Because cat form does not have a baseline speed increase for resto or boomkin, only for feral (and possibly guardian - not sure) At least not in my experience thus far.